Speak For Yourself is a platform for artists and musicians to discuss what inspires and influences their work. Texan CRAIG CLOUSE is the force behind the furious, original energy of London-based Shit and Shine and Todd, both out on the noisy Riot Season label. Only a limited number of CDs are pressed for each release, and they invariably sell out. Their music has reviewers grasping for wild, abstract similes of bemused praise. Their live shows consist of anywhere between five and 20 drummers on stage all thrashing out the same beat. It’s the kind of music that totally chucks off the intellect to commune directly with the gut, the bowels, the Id. They make My Bloody Valentine look like Bon Iver.Clouse rarely gives interviews, so we’re mighty chuffed to have him speak for himself:

Art and Music Magazine: Interviews?CRAIG CLOUSE: Uuggghh.

Critical praisePeople love us. People hate us.“Todd” vs. “Shit and Shine”Todd is the rock band. Shit and Shine is the fuck-all-y’all band.Why do your records sell out?We don’t make a million crappy records and try to shove them in as many faces as possible. We make quality records in small amounts. Once they’re gone we move on.LiveA noise opera with a wall of orange amps, blue faced bunnies and a load of drummers, half of whom don’t really understand what they’re getting themselves into (sometimes we recruit local drummers when we tour) and after a while obviously don’t want to be there but are too embarrassed or stubborn to quit drumming until the others do. Especially the German drummers: “I vill nevva play vis shit and shine again!”

Lawrence getting punched in the face in Italy by a big macho blue bunny-phobic rugby player farmer who was then taken down and held in a headlock by Apollo Liftoff (one of our drummers).

Collaborating with DEADBOY and BASS PUPPY aka HYPER BLACK BASS at Madame Jojos. Pissed on eight cans of Stella and getting busted in the toilet smoking weed and almost getting thrown out by the club security.

Bass Puppy getting his head shaved on stage during a show in Italy on Christmas day.

Playing with 20 drummers in Dresden.

Playing with Sunn O))) and Earth in a massive hall in Berlin. Later, seeing the Sunn O))) guys bump into things trying to find their way to the stage through the thick fog from their smoke machines.

Playing under a big top tent in Brussels in scorching heat while watching jets fly over in formation and a fireworks display.

Playing a show in Austin, Texas during which a guy stands directly in front of the stage doing the thumbs down sign for the entire duration of our 40 minute show.

A guest drummer in Prague couldn’t quite understand our directions for the song and didn’t know when to start…sat behind his kit not playing, waiting for some kind of sign. We finished the show and he started crying he was so upset he didn’t get to play.

Our forthcoming shows in San Francisco with Eugene Robinson from Oxbow doing vocals and NO drummers.

APT Camber Sands. Madrid Museum of Art. Brussels botanical gardens, drumming with Johnny Monkey drummer. Linz, Austria with a timpani drummer. Sonar Festival, Barcelona. Our first show at Buffalo Bar when it was just two of us…

Trying to buy hash from a Danish prostitute in a grubby bar in an industrial estate after a show in Aalborg… “I like your friend.”

Starting a show to a full house at an East German techno festival at 5am and finishing the show at 8am to an empty house…

Radio-editRob da Bank tried it with us and failed miserably. Fucking donut.

SpotifyVinyl.

MySpaceMetal bands and their three-foot long comments with a picture of a raven coming out of a skull in front of a foggy, broken-down church. Those bands who send out the “Hey there, we’re an Estonian dark ambient techno prog. folk band. Please check out our music and let us know what you think!” The totally odd pale looking Thai girls who frame pictures of themselves with roses and unicorns and say things like “Have a very beautiful day, Thanks for your friendship.” What is going on there? It’s fucking creepy. Deeply fucking creepy…. All that shit.

FansNervous quiet English guys with peach-fuzz beards and black metal t-shirts. Shiny-faced German guys who have Tori Amos and Billy Joel posters and hundreds of photo copies of the cast from Scrubs tacked up all over their tiny flat. Skitzy American college girls with sweaty foreheads who lock into eye contact and want to talk about their ex-boyfriend who plays bass. An old well-dressed Italian man who wants to share his penis shaped calzone pizza with us and keeps looking at Lawrence’s ass. The lonely, the deferential and the dispossessed. Vapid, hollow-eyed vixens looking for a free ride.

Lightning BoltBlack pus.

Sissy SpacekGreatest band we’ve seen in a very long time. Totally amazing.

‘Three Days of Struggle’The best festival on the planet. CODA LUNGA!!!!

Nico VascellariMakes a great plate of pasta and has a really hot girlfriend.

Who do you listen to?A donkey and a beagle on a seesaw, and Frankie when she needs a pee.